I have been looking around for some electric door lock actuators to go into a vehicle that has manual. Most of the actuators that I have found seem to be made of plastic and I wonder how they will hold up over time. Do they have metal actuators?

Hi: I'm going to move this thread to General Rodding Tech and also leave it in the Interior forum.

Dan

Just my 2 cents worth, but why would you want metal actuators in a place (the inside of a car door) that they would be bound to corrode? Plastic doesn't necessarily mean cheap. You might want to look at some better quality units, though. CLICK HERE Good luck.

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I put one of the add-on power lock kits on my '75 GMC, and the life of the plastic actuators seems to be about 3 years. They only cost about $5 if you buy them separate from the kits, so the biggest cost for replacement is the time it takes to put them in.

If you buy the ones that are called 5 wire actuators, it will allow you to lock all doors by just pushing down the driver's lock button. However, many replacement actuators are only two-wire actuators, which means you have to mount a power lock switch also.

Stock GM actuators for my truck are about $35, and they are made of metal. I picked up some at the junk yard, but since Power windws were not available in '75 on these GM trucks, I will have to drill the holes to mount them.

What did you find the actuators off of? The project I have is a 1968 and the linkages are tight, (I need to grease them) and it seems that the plastic actuators can't handle the strain. Maybe the metal ones can.....maybe they have more umphhh.

The actuators I bought at the junkyard are from about an '80 Chevy/GMC pickup, and they seem to be very durable. The basic design of most GM actuators is the same, but the mounting brackets are different for different vehicles.

The GM truck actuator bracket has two holes, one above the other, and the bracket mounts on the face of the door panel area, just about where it meets the door jamb. This means that the two bolt heads are visible, unless you have a vinyl door panel that completely covers to the edge of that area.

If your lock linkages are not moving smoothly, you will have trouble getting the power actuators to work well. Although the GM actuator looks like its made better, I don't think it has a significant difference in push/pull power. I think you can buy some actuators that claim to have higher power, but you will have to do some searching in the hot rod electrical parts.

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